The Port Fairy Murders by Robert Gott

eucalypts from Melbourne’s fringes seemed somehow stronger than it had been before he’d fainted. He turned out the lights, crossed to the window, pulled back the blackouts, and closed it. Pigdon Street was deserted. A motorcycle passed by slowly, heading towards Lygon Street. Inspector Lambert had said that Starling was on a motorcycle. Joe looked at his watch. It was now after 10.15. Lambert had warned him to leave immediately, and somehow almost 20 minutes had already elapsed. The motorcycle didn’t slow further as it passed his window, which he reopened in order to listen, in case it stopped or turned around. It didn’t. He heard it turn right at Lygon Street, and then the sound of its engine faded. Joe realised as he strained to hear the engine that he was frightened. This angered him. Surely if he stayed he could set a trap to catch George Starling. His heart fluttered, and he knew he had to leave. Apart from any other consideration, if he didn’t go to the Lamberts’ house, he’d be disobeying a direct instruction, and his position in Homicide felt tenuous enough as it was. He decided to walk up Sydney Road to the Lamberts’ house in Brunswick. This would take 30 minutes — 30 minutes in which he could prepare himself to meet Maude Lambert for the first time since she’d turned her unforgiving back on him in the hospital a few shorts weeks before.
    GEORGE STARLING TURNED into Pigdon Street from Bowen Crescent. He drove slowly with his headlights switched off. He knew Joe Sable’s flat, having been there once before. As he approached it, he saw a window on the first floor — Sable’s window — close. He couldn’t make out the figure who’d closed it, but he knew there was a possibility that the motorcycle had been seen, certainly heard. On the ride from Warrnambool he’d considered the probability that the police who’d visited his father’s farm would have either returned to the farm or been told that the motorcycle was missing. He hated them, but he didn’t think they were stupid. He wished now that he hadn’t torched the house. It would only have taken a phone call to warn Sable. Maybe, though, the house had been razed without having been noticed, although with the current panic about bushfires no plume of smoke would have gone unchecked. The fact that Sable was still in his flat — and who else could it have been closing the window? — meant that Starling had arrived ahead of any warning. Nevertheless, to be sure, he drove on to Lygon Street, and revved his engine to alert any listener that he’d turned towards the city. He rode two blocks south, turned right at the cemetery into Macpherson Street, cut the engine, and dismounted. He pushed the bike to the corner of Macpherson and Arnold streets. Sable’s flat sat two blocks north, on the corner of Arnold and Pigdon. He parked the bike and began to walk. He passed a school and might have stopped to smash a few windows if he’d known it was a Jew school. When he reached Sable’s block of flats, he stood in the shadows on the opposite side of Arnold Street, and considered his options.
    JOE SABLE THREW a few personal effects into a small bag. The idea of spending the rest of the night in Inspector Lambert’s house was peculiar, even without the added tension of confronting Maude Lambert and her injured brother, Tom Mackenzie. He packed his razor, a comb, and a change of underwear and socks. The thought of that motorcycle bothered him, but if he stuck to Sydney Road it would be difficult for anyone to take him by surprise. He left his flat, and walked downstairs and out into Arnold Street. He didn’t notice a slight movement in the deep shadows on the opposite side, and he didn’t notice either as the figure in those shadows broke away and began following him from a safe distance.
    Joe was alert to all the traffic on Sydney Road. There wasn’t much. A motorcycle roared past, but Joe recognised the uniform of an American soldier.